VOL. XXXVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 341 



skill and attention so to distinguish the cinnamon trees from each other, as not 

 to choose now and then a worse sort for the best. The root of this 'id tree 

 yields a very good sort of camphor. 



The 3d sort is called capperoe coronde, which is as much as to say, cam- 

 phorated cinnamon, because it has a very strong smell and taste of camphor. 

 It grows plentifully enough in the island, but not in the eastern parts of it. 

 However, they find means now and then to send it over privately, and sell it to 

 the Danes and English, who come to trade on the coasts of Coromandel; for 

 as long as there is but one port in the island left open, abundance of this sort 

 of bad merchandise may be exported. Besides, there is a sort of canella, 

 growing on the continent of India, about Goa, which is very like this sort of 

 cinnamon tree, though it has nothing of the true cinnamon. The same sort 

 of canella agrees in many things with the canella malabarica sylvestris, a wild 

 cinnamon tree, growing on the coasts of Malabar. And though with regard to 

 the shape of the tree, and the outward appearance of the bark and leaves, there 

 is very little difference to be observed between these two sorts of canella, and 

 the abovementioned first and good sort of cinnamon, yet the latter is vastly 

 superior in richness, virtue, and sweetness. 



The 4th sort of cinnamon is called welle coronde, that is, the sandy cinna- 

 mon, because on chewing it, one feels as it were, bits of sand between the 

 teeth, though in fact there is nothing sandy in it. The bark of this tree comes 

 ofi-' easily enough, but is not so easily rolled up into a fibular form, as other 

 sorts of cinnamon are, being apt to burst open, and to unfold itself. It is of 

 a sharp and bitterish taste, and its root yields but a small quantity of camphor. 



The 3th sort is called sewel coronde, sewel in the Ceylonese language signi- 

 fying mucilaginous or glutinous. This sort of cinnamon acquires in drying a 

 very considerable degree of hardness, which on chewing of it sufficiently shows 

 itself. It has otherwise but little taste, and an ungrateful smell; but its colour 

 is very fine, and the natives, who are all blacks, mix a good deal of this muci- 

 laginous cinnamon along with the first and best sort, the colour of both being 

 very much alike, excepting only, that in the good sort there are some i'ew yel- 

 lowish spots appear towards the extremities. 



The 6th sort is called nieke coronde, the tree which bears it, having a good 

 deal qf resemblance to another tree, called nieke gas, and the fruit it bears 

 nieke. The bark of this sort of cinnamon tree has no taste or smell, when 

 taken off, and is used by the natives only in physic. For by roasting it they 

 obtain a water and oil, with which they anoint themselves, thus thinking to 

 keep off all sorts of noxious fumes and infections in the air. They likewise 



